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Most Ohioans know Mark Kvamme from his work with Gov. John Kasich in the privatization of Ohio’s
economic-development agency into JobsOhio. But Kvamme is also a legacy Silicon Valley tech
capitalist who, among other feats, worked with Steve Jobs on the 1997 ad campaign that launched
Apple into the iPod era.

Kvamme is widely known for his investments in successful Internet ventures. He’s had a hand in
shaping, funding and advising the globe’s most-

successful tech brands, from Apple to LinkedIn, Yahoo to Amazon.

His “passion projects” include founding the website Funny or Die, which he and his son pitched
to comedian Will Ferrell and writing partner Adam McKay in 2007. Among his personal ventures is an
investment in moonshine distillery Popcorn Sutton’s Tennessee White Whiskey, led by his wife, CEO
Megan Kvamme.

“When you’ve seen one of these companies go, it’s an amazing experience,” says Kvamme. “We’re
looking forward to having one of those go here in Columbus.”

In 2013, Kvamme launched Drive Capital from an office in the Arena District. Drive has secured
$250 million in investments for its first fund, including $50 million from Ohio State University.
There are four tech companies in Drive’s portfolio: CrossChx, a medical-records verification
platform; Roadtrippers, an on-the-road travel guide; Channel IQ retail-data analytics software; and
FarmLogs, a farm-management application. Kvamme expects to fund about 30 ventures through Drive’s
first investment fund.

Kvamme discussed his career and what it takes to launch a successful tech company:

A: For a lot of different reasons. One is Columbus is really central to many of the great
Midwestern cities.

One-hundred and fifty of the Fortune 500 (companies) are in the Midwest. In Silicon Valley, you
have a lot of technologists, and you can build the technology, but then you’ve got to go sell it to
customers, to big companies. Then you start traveling.

In the Midwest, all your customers are right here. I think that’s a huge advantage that our
companies have in the Midwest that is not available to the companies in Silicon Valley.

Q: How does it feel to have been involved in the success of some of the most influential
Internet companies?

A: I’ve been very fortunate. From a Silicon Valley perspective, all the early companies, I knew
many of the folks there as a child through my father (and) then later on as a professional. I
worked very early with everyone.

I remember when David Filo and Jerry Ying walked into my office because they needed a logo and a
design for Yahoo. There were four people in the company. All four of them were there, David wasn’t
wearing shoes, they were in jeans and cutoffs and stuff. And we designed the first Yahoo site. The
first ad campaign for Amazon, working with Jeff Bezos. We’ve worked with a ton of those
(companies), so it’s been fun watching them grow up over the years.

Q: Did you learn anything from those experiences that you carry with you today?

A: There’s a couple things. The people that put these companies together are special — they have
a special vision. These things don’t happen overnight. It takes a long time to build these
companies and to do the things they do. There’s a lot of ups and downs. The ones that we all know
about now and are household names, they’re attacking big markets, they’re looking at things that
change the world.

Q: Some of the four companies you have going here — these are big-idea companies. Is that what
you’re looking for at Drive?

A: Yeah, really what we’re doing is just like we were at Sequoia, what we like to call
market-based investors. What you want to do is find companies that, if they succeed, they can have
huge returns.

Q: Is a 24/7 work ethic necessary in your line of work?

A: Absolutely. It is tough. This is a 7-by-24 business, whether you’re an entrepreneur, whether
you’re venture capital. If you want to be good at it, you have to work very, very hard. The 80-hour
workweek is a short week. It’s every minute, every day, all the time.

Q: How do you entice companies to relocate here in Columbus?

A: Our pitch is multifold. One is, in the past, you had to be in Silicon Valley to build
technology companies because that’s where the core technologists were.

Today, you don’t have to do that. Our engineers here and our companies here can attract the best
talent, can find these folks to do what they need, and know they can utilize the cloud to go make
that happen.

Next to customers, you have a lower cost of living, you have great access to engineers. It’s a
great place to build the next technology business.